ALS Virtual Ice munzees

The ALS Virtual Ice icon

Anybody miss the ice bucket challenge videos yet? I confess I grew tired of those pretty quickly, but there is no denying that the viral campaign was hugely successful at raising money and awareness for ALS. Munzee had a successful campaign supporting Ronald McDonald House with the RMH Virtuals, and so they ran a similar campaign for ALS this month. Virtual Ice cubes appeared in the Munzee store in early September and for a few bucks you could buy four of them (with a significant donation to ALS). A player earned 32 points for the deploy and each cap split 32 points between the capper and deployer, so they were high point value munzees. Being a virtual, they could be placed anywhere in the world, and between these two factors, they became very popular. They were also included as prizes for the lower levels in the clan war this month, so there was also ample opportunity to win them.

Thousands of ALS Ice Cubes near McKinney, TX

I bought eight of them early on (and wond three in the clan war) and placed a couple in San Diego. The rest I sprinkled around the world at proven virtual hot spots... Cologne, Hamburg, London, and in a little town in Texas called McKinney. McKinney, of course, is the site of the big Octoberfest Munzee Bash, which is happening today. With hundreds of munzers coming together for beer and capping, these virtuals were almost guaranteed a ton of caps. I deployed early in the month, so my virtual ice is located pretty close to the site of the party. Clearly, others had the same idea, and soon it became the largest virtual ice field in the world!

As September comes to an end, it is clear the placements have paid off. Three of my ALS Virtual Ice munzees are in my top ten deployment list (one has 86 caps). I've scored almost 15,000 cap on points, have jumped 15 levels (to level 96 and counting), and cracked the top 2000 in the world (currently at 1892). I can't imagine what the cappers in McKinney are scoring! It's been a lot of fun watching the points roll in and there is no question that the ALS Ice have contributed greatly to individual scoring. I have to give major kudos to all of those at the Munzee Bash who capped my munzees!! I wish I could have been there!!! As the Virtual Ice melts away and the munzees disappear at the end of the month, I think it is safe to say that the ALS campaign was one of the most successful munzees yet!

Munzee Virtual Gardens

First official Munzee virtual garden in McKinney, TX

Over the past six months, there has been an explosion in the number of virtual gardens around the world. With the addition of the virtual mystery munzee and a rainbow of colors that can be applied to virtuals, some incredibly impressive works of geoart have been created. Just a few days ago, Munzee deployed the first "official" munzee garden using the new emerald virtual. This geoart is located just outside McKinney, TX and is not far from the new Munzee Marketplace. I was incredibly fortunate to get one of these (they sold out in less than an hour) and am very proud to have contributed to this historical garden (you can see my munzee in the letter n).

Flags in Copenhagen, Denmark

I'm not sure when the first munzee geoart was made, but the first one I contributed to was the flag project in Copenhagen. I travel to Copenhagen on occasion for business (and I'll eventually have a post about some of my geo-adventures there), so when this came up I felt compelled to help build the American flag. You can see from the picture that the American flag has about 60 spots for munzees, and required (obviously) red, white, and blue ones. When this started being built a few months ago, I had some regular virtual munzees, which are white, so I deployed one there. It appears as the grey munzee in the center white stripe of the flag.

Rubik's Cube in Budapest, Hungary

I have also deployed virtuals in a Rubik's Cube in Hungary, an American flag in TN, and in a few unfinished projects. There are also virtual fields that are more ad hoc in nature. These huge congregations of virtuals are placed haphazardly anywhere the user can find a space. These often become colorful explosions of virtuals, special munzees and regular greenies. If you want to try your hand at creating some munzee geoart, here is a good tool by Hinklenator (virtual grid generator)

US flag and partial TN flag near Franklin, TN

Here in San Diego, we recently had our first ad hoc virtual field appear, deployed in large part by H2OKLAN and Habu. You can see from the picture below that I have already captured about half of the munzees in this area (mainly mystery virtuals) and have deployed a bunch myself. This area of Fiesta Island is special to me because when I first started playing Munzee two years ago, there were very few munzees down here. I love the area and it is near SeaWorld, so I thought it might be a good place to start growing the map. For months, I would swing by here when I had time and deploy a few munzees. People would come cap them and deploy some more and then I would return to cap the new ones and so on. Eventually, the area exploded and is now the highest concentration of munzees in the greater San Diego area. It's great for me as well because I don't have to travel to LA as often to score points for the clan wars. I can't compete with the power players, who have come to dominate the area, but this is a great example of a situation where a few players (jayterho, patnanz, JOK, habu, and razztazzzz were also early deployers in the area) can have a big impact on growing the map.

San Diego's first major virtual cluster on Fiesta Island

Nirvana Avenue

An appropriate street name combo

A few weeks ago, I had to drive one of my kids down to the Sleeptrain Amphitheater for a concert (Slightly Stoopid). The venue is in Chula Vista, a few miles from the border, and so it is an area chock full of caches I have not found yet. I had some time to kill waiting for the concert to end, and I passed Nirvana Avenue. As a fan of many of these great alternative bands of the late 80's and early 90's, I felt obliged to see if there was a cache on this road. Not only were there several caches, but they paid homage to this great band. So, naturally, I had to stop.

The road itself was lined with office buildings and, oddly enough, junked car lots. It was a strange area, especially at night, and was very quiet. Too quiet, actually. The first stop was a cache named Dave Grohl by user ÂŃÔŃ¥MÔÜŠ (GC46ENW). It looked like your standard magnetic hide on one of those big green electrical boxes. Those green boxes are affectionately known as 'boogers' out here, and it took me awhile when I was first caching in SoCal to understand these hints (the cache is on a booger?). Anyhow, I checked a couple of places and then noticed a security guard in the neighboring parking lot. He hadn't spotted me, so I went back the car and waited until he had passed. Returning to my search, I checked out a few other areas before the guard returned. He had spotted me this time, and I figured it was time to move on. I've had run-ins with security before and they are usually pretty cool about caches, but I don't like pushing my luck. So, I left good ol' Dave unfound.

Next up was Krist Novoselic (GC46EP4). This hide was more or less what I was expecting before. Magnetic Altoids tin hidden in a likely spot. However, I ran into a security guard at this hide too -- an eight-legged one!! The cache was right in the middle of a huge black widow's web. Black Widow's are a serious hazard while night caching, but after the DNF at Dave's hide, I wasn't about to DNF Krist! I found a stick and attempted to remove the cache, but the magnet was too strong. I now had a cache that was further away and a very angry spider. Undaunted, I tried using the stick with a little more oompf and BAZINGA! The cache went flying into the darkness!  After a brief search, I had logged Krist and returned the cache to the area of the angry spider.

Then it was time for the big kahuna... Kurt Cobain (GC46EP9). According to the GPSr, I parked right on top of poor ol' Kurt, so I knew it was close. Searched a few likely spots with my cell phone flashlight and was getting worried that this was going to be another dreaded DNF. Finally had an 'aha' moment (more like a D'oh moment) and the cache was mine. Hidden in plain sight... I think Kurt would have liked that hide.